


Puppetry

by Crystalwren



Series: Simulacra [2]
Category: Hellsing
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-28
Updated: 2008-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:54:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalwren/pseuds/Crystalwren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Simulacrum; painted cats and Briar Rose. TV series-verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Puppetry

_Sucker love is heaven sent.  
You pucker up, our passion's spent.  
My hearts a tart, your body's rent.  
My body's broken, yours is bent._

 _Carve your name into my arm.  
Instead of stressed, I lie here charmed.  
Cuz there's nothing else to do,  
Every me and every you._

 __

 _Every You_ _, Every Me –_ Placebo

 

 

Heat rose in shimmering waves from concrete paths and bitumen roads. The sun blazed in the sky like an inferno and dogs crawled under houses to die and the sick and the elderly collapsed in droves.

 

The roses bloomed.

 

The gardens planted by Integra’s mother reacted to the heat by putting on an extravagant display of flowers and foliage. In the dusk the thick perfume made Walter’s head ache and the noise of the birds clamoured inside his skull until it rang. He found her, the light of the setting sun dying her hair a burning, bloody red, and when she turned to face him he couldn’t see her eyes.

 

“Sir Integra,” he said, “it’s time to get ready.”

 

Later in the dressing room he surveyed her. In a different world he would have told her that she looked lovely and she would have accepted the complement for what it was and smiled. In this world she didn’t look lovely and would never accept a compliment even if she did. Integra looked cold, distant, imposing, a Knight of the Round Table in surcoat and sword. Khaki green didn’t suit her and that was precisely the reason why she wore it. The old man forced a smile. “The car is prepared and waiting,” he said, fussing at her hair.

 

“Leave it,” she told him when he picked up a comb. He frowned and set it back on the dressing table. “That will have to do.”

 

Walter sighed. He tugged at a sleave until it sat just right. “I wish you would rest.”

 

“One does not refuse the invitation of a queen, Walter.”

 

“Yes, Sir Integra,” and he felt the familiar weight of reluctance settling in his gut. “Your tiepin is crooked,” he added.

 

“Don’t fret so,” she told him, but he ignored her. The metal of the cross was warm under his fingers and he stuck the tip of the pin between his teeth for safe keeping. Pulling the silk of the cravat out from under her jacket, he deftly untied it and reknotted it. The familiar pleasure of doing a simple task well and with elegance; the fading familiarity with the heat of her body as she slowly regained both her health and her independence; the familiar feeling of tiptoeing around the sleeping jaguar, wondering if this would be the final piece in the puzzle she needed for the truth about him. Walter fixed his eyes firmly on blue silk and skewered it firmly with the tiepin. He folded her collar back down and finally raised his gaze back to hers. Blue eyes. Integra’s blue, blue eyes. She stared hard at him, long enough for his heart to make a single, clumsy thud. She said, “Let’s go,” and he followed in her wake and the tap of her cane. The metallic taste in his mouth lingered on for a very long time.

 

 Meetings, conferences, consultations. Meeting with the Queen. Debates with the Round Table. She pushed herself as mercilessly as always, determined to make up for her long illness. When presented with the chip of vampire tooth that the doctor had dug out of her neck, the source of the infection, she’d hissed impatiently and tossed the little baggie in the bin. “I don’t have time for such foolishness.”

 

Walter had fished the baggie out when she wasn’t looking, and in a moment of whimsy, he’d thought of having the tiny fleck of ivory set into a ring or pendant. In the end, however, he had placed the baggie into a box hidden in a chest of drawers in his bedroom, a box that also held a beautiful red satin nightgown.

 

“I wish you would rest,” he said again, as she clambered into the limo. He followed her before she could object and sat himself across from her. “You can’t keep pushing yourself like this.”

 

The intercom clicked softly and the driver’s voice came over the speaker. “Director Hellsing, do you still need your bodyguard?”

 

Integra scowled. “No,” she said finally, “Walter will suffice.” She turned off the intercom and ratted around in her coat before producing a cigarillo. Completely ignoring Walter’s look of disapproval, she bit the tip off and spat it into her palm. Dropping it into an ashtray set in the armrest she said, “Do you have a light?”

 

He grudgingly produced a cigarette lighter; something that habit had made him carry even though up until now, Integra hadn’t needed it. He shook it, uncertain if there was even any fuel left in it. It sloshed; he flicked the spark wheel and a pale yellow flame appeared. Integra leant forward, sucking eagerly at the cigarillo until it caught alight. Taking a deep breath and holding it for as long as she could, she shuddered with pleasure and smiled dreamily. “God,” she said, exhaling clouds of violet smoke, “God, I missed this.”

 

“Doctor Trevallyn had hoped you would take the opportunity to quit entirely.”

 

“Doctor Trevallyn hoped wrong. Good grief, Walter, don’t be such an old woman.”

 

That was another bad habit of hers, Walter reflected as he slipped the cigarette lighter over his knuckles in a parlour trick he’d perfected at the ripe age of fourteen.  She used gender as though it were an insult. Don’t be such an old woman. Don’t nag, you sound like a fishwife. Don’t be such a girl. Tucking the lighter away he felt suddenly sad and he snuck a glance at her, at the masculine clothing, the men’s overcoat, the men’s boots, the ruthlessly plain white shirt. Somewhere along the line Integra had started to hate her femineity and not for the first time he wondered how different she would have been if her mother had lived.

 

“Allow me some indulgences,” she said wearily, as if she’d read his mind. “So, do you want to tell me what this is in aid of? Weren’t you scheduled to oversee troop exercises this morning?”

  
“I’m certain Ferguson will manage on his own,” replied Walter. “I wanted to talk to you. In private,” he added, the both of them knowing that there was no such thing as privacy in a mansion that housed a creature like the vampire Alucard.

 

She arched an eyebrow and tapped the cigarillo over the ashtray built into the armrest. “Spit it out.”

 

“You are pushing yourself too hard. Doctor Trevallyn is concerned that you may relapse.”

 

The close confines of the car made the smoke condense into little mare’s tails around her face. She appeared distant and surreal, like something he’d seen once in a dream.

 

“If I relapse,” she said, “I will get up again. Besides, there’s no one to do it for me.”

 

“You have me,” snapped Walter. “Don’t you realise that?” and immediately knew that this time he’d said too much.

 

Vulnerability flashed across her eyes and her mouth hardened into a thin line. “Walter,” she said quietly, stubbing out her cigarillo in quick, angry movements, “Is there…is there anything you want to tell me?”

 

Through the sensation of every bone in his body turning to ice he said, with absolute honesty, “Nothing whatsoever.”

 

There was a terrifying silence.

 

The voice of the driver crackled over the intercom. “We’ve arrived at Buckinghuge Palace, marm.”

 

 “Very good,” she glowered at Walter.

 

The car slowed and came to a halt. Before Walter could move she grabbed the handle and opened the door herself. One last piercing looking at his face and she got out.  He followed after her, feeling numb all over.

 

**

 

He was locked out of the meeting room, of course, and he ended up in the antechamber with the rest of the stewards, lackeys and general hangers-on. He smiled at some, nodded affably at others and gave certain individuals the hairy eyeball. These men were none of them his contemporaries. Everyone from Walter’s youth was dead, or retired, or insane and at these gatherings he was treated in much the same way you’d treat an old warhorse; the cheerful condescension for something past its glory days, a wary respect for its past capabilities, and a barely-concealed fear of what would happen if it suddenly got it in its head to be dangerous. Allowing himself to be drawn into a little clinic, he did his best to join in on the conversation but all he could think of was how young they looked, and he was so old.

 

“It’s hot,” complained one of his companions, and immediately the group chorused in agreement. Walter smiled politely and watched the conference room door.

 

“God I need a holiday,” groaned another. “I’d go somewhere nice and cool. Siberia. Siberia is good this time of year.”

 

“A holiday!” said a man whom Walter vaguely remembered as being attached to Sir Islands, “How long has it been since I had once of those! Not since I started working for the old gentleman.”

 

“Ah, your holidaying days are over,” smirked the individual who’d started it all. “You’ve joined up with the Knights of the Round Table. Your life belongs to them. Leisure will be eternally out of your grasp. Isn’t that right, Walter, old son?”

 

“Mm?” said Walter, tearing his eyes away from the door.

 

“How long has it been since your last holiday?”

 

“I’ve never had a holiday. I’ve never needed one. Hellsing’s all I ever needed. Why would I want to leave?”

 

There was a short, stunned silence. They stared at him with expressions very close to horror. Then conversation resumed awkwardly around him.

 

It was several hours before the conference doors opened. Her Royal Highness, the Queen of Britain glided gracefully through the ranks of men standing at attention and into a more private section of the palace. Integra stalked out with everyone else, stabbing at the floor with her cane and her face a perfect mask of serene calm. She smiled sweetly at Walter, who had to throttle the sudden urge to run for it.

 

“Shall we?” she purred, and he bowed in reply. He fell in behind her and as they left Walter could feel the combined gaze of everyone in the room on his back.

 

“Please slow down, remember that you were in a wheelchair just a few weeks ago,” was what Walter wanted to say as various palace flunkies dived out of Integra’s way to avoid being run over. He wasn’t tired of living quite yet so he kept his mouth shut and trotted after her obediently.  The limo was waiting for them in the courtyard and Integra threw herself inside without so much as pausing.

 

“Go,” she snarled as Walter shut the door behind him. The limo pulled out in a crunch of gravel and Integra turned off the intercom and began to swear.

 

“Misbegotten, inbred, ignorant sons of whores!”  She hissed. “How dare they? How dare they?”

 

“The issue of marriage and a successor to Hellsing again?” asked Walter meekly.

 

“No! I told you, I have eggs frozen!” Integra made a visible effort to calm herself and fished her cigar case out of her coat. She opened it, selected a cigarillo and slipped the case back into a pocket. She ripped the cellophane off in a single impatient gesture and said, “what those ignorant, _dickless_ bastards did,” and here she paused to bite the tip of the cigarillo off in a frighteningly vicious gesture that made Walter whimper softly to himself and cross his legs, “was spend three and a half _fucking_ hours accusing me, _in front of Her Majesty,_ of not putting enough resources into finding out the origin of the freak chip! That isn’t our job, _that_ _is not our job!”_

 

Her hand shook visibly as she put the cigarillo in her mouth. Knowing the simple inevitability of what was going to happen, Walter lit it for her. A single hard drag was all it took and Integra choked and began to cough. The cigarillo fell to the floor and Walter stomped on it as he leant forward and caught her in his arms before she ended up on the floor, too. The only woman Walter had ever loved shuddered and fought for breath in his arms and all he could do was rub her back and offer up empty words of comfort, as worthless and as meaningless as bits of dandelion fluff.

 

**

 

It was still early in the evening when Walter made his weary way back to his rooms. Nice to have an early night for once but the reason behind it- Doctor Trevallyn lecturing and finally sedating an obstinate Integra- lacked a certain appeal.

 

He opened the door, was surprised, but recovered quickly. “I haven’t seen you look like that for a very long time,” he said.

 

There was a little girl sitting on Walter’s bed, a pretty little girl with long black hair and white skin. Her fringe fell adorably into her red, slit-pupil eyes and when she smiled her fangs poked out from under her lip. “I was feeling nostalgic,” she piped and swung her feet. Walter stripped off his tie and stopped with his hands hovering about the buttons of his vest. “What’s the matter?”

 

“Nothing,” said Walter. He kicked off his shoes instead and dropped into his armchair.

 

“I’ve seen you naked many times,” she reminded him reproachfully.

 

“I know, Alucard, I know. Allow me an old man’s quirks.” The little girl shrugged and swung her feet some more. “So, what can I do for you?”

 

“All business,” sighed Alucard, “Such a shame.” She slipped off the bed and hiked up her little girl dress so that she could clamber into Walter’s lap. “All work and no play makes Walter a dull boy,” and he promptly shoved her away.

 

“I am not, and never have been, interested in little girls,” he said levelly as Alucard picked herself up off the floor and set her dress to rights.

 

“Well, you know that and I know that,” she cooed, “but Integra doesn’t know that.”

 

“Meaning?”

 

“Meaning that she’s beginning to put two and two together,” and Walter groaned and covered his face with his hands. “She’s almost figured it out. Having a bit of trouble believing it though.”

 

“And?”

 

“And she isn’t happy.”

 

Walter dropped his hands to his lap and stared at them, rubbing his fingers together and feeling the metal of his rings underneath the leather. “I am not the first person to develop an infatuation with Integra. I doubt I will be the last.”

 

“Oh, absolutely,” agreed Alucard, hopping back onto the bed, “but it’s different with you and you know it.”

 

“Does she know…?”

 

“…about our little game?” Alucard grinned. “Of course not. You’re still alive, aren’t you?” and Walter was able to summon up the faintest ghost of a smile.

 

“I wonder what she’d do to _you.”_

 

“Nothing. She needs me, but she doesn’t trust me. You on the other hand…”

 

“You’re a monster.”

 

“What does that make you?” from out of thin air the little girl produced a familiar red hat and put it on. Titled, it gave her a rather jaunty look. “Give it a rest. False righteousness makes my teeth ache.” She blew him a kiss. “Until tomorrow, lover.” She sank down through the bed until she disappeared entirely.

 

Walter got undressed and went and had a shower, but as soon as he got out he became sticky and sweaty again and it seemed like he needn’t have bothered. He slept naked, and the roar of the air conditioning made him dream of dragons and steam trains.

 

**

 

He awoke so early it was late. Still dark outside the window when he twitched aside the curtain. Rising, he went straight to the shower. Masturbated like it was a chore and not a pleasure and then turned the hot water off and stood in the cold until his fingers and toes were icicles and his genitalia (the source of so much trouble in his life) staged a strategic retreat into his pelvic cavity. The blissful sensation of coolness didn’t last long; before he’d even finished dressing he was sweating again. Standing on a chair, he pressed his hand against the central air con grill. There was nothing, and Walter hopped down with a resigned sigh. To all intents and purposes, the air conditioning machines had finally given up the ghost trying to cope with the freak weather conditions. He opened the windows in the hopes of catching a breeze but all was in vain. It hadn’t cooled down at all overnight and the sun coming up over the horizon promised much worse to come.

 

He left the room and headed towards the kitchens, where a newspaper would be waiting along with the first cup of tea of the day.

 

“Good morning, Mr Dornez,” all efficiency and politeness a baker stopped his suffocating work over the ovens long enough to fetch a pot of tea. This was a small, guilty pleasure for Walter; these rare occasions when _he_ was the one being served and usually he’d find a quiet corner out of the way and watch with all the satisfaction of one knowing that all the work was going to be done by someone else for a change but the huge ovens, built to feed a couple hundred people all at once, combined with the broken air conditioning to turn the kitchen into an oversized furnace. Waler grabbed his tea and paper, stole a fresh bread roll and went outside to eat. The garden was full of screaming birds fighting madly over what water remained in the ornamental ponds. To conserve water Integra had ordered the gardens and lawns abandoned and they were rapidly turning dust. She couldn’t bring herself to let the roses die, however, and they were flourishing, looking like something out of a fairytale or else a very English jungle. Sitting down on a stone bench to have breakfast, Walter found himself eyeing the roses over the top of his newspaper, half-expecting to see a painted cat come gliding out from under the cover of the foliage.

 

“No jaguars in London, Angel of Death,” said Alucard.

 

“You’re up late,” replied Walter frowning in annoyance as the vampire stole a sip of his tea.

 

The big vampire looked more than a little ridiculous, hunched down in the shadow of a bush, huddling under his hat and coat. What Walter could see of his face was set into lines of utter disgust. “I _itch._ You humans are insane, being out in the sun day after day.”

 

“If it bothers you,” said Walter serenely, “feel free to leave,” and then sneezed. “Blasted roses.” His nose began to ache.

 

“Have you ever read the story of _Sleeping Beauty?”_

Walter let the newspaper fall to his lap. “Yes. Yes I have.”

 

“Have you ever wondered what the purpose of the briars was?”

 

“To protect the sleeping princess, I always thought.”

 

“When I first heard the story it occurred to me to wonder if the bits with the fairy godmothers were added in later.”

 

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Lord Alucard.”

 

“The briars belonged to Beauty; they were both protection and a test. Sleeping Beauty was not sleeping. She was waiting.”

 

Biting his lip, Walter stared hard at his reflection in the lenses of Alucard’s sunglasses. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“Think.”

 

“Have you ever, in your long existence, been straightforward? Must you always talk in bizarre riddles?”

 

“Of course. It’s no fun otherwise.”

 

“Mr Dornez?” Walter turned around. The gardener stood there; rake in one hand, secateurs in the other, bemused expression on her face. “I’m sorry, sir. I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

 

“I was talking to myself,” said Walter smoothly. “Sorry if I bothered you.”

 

“Not at all, sir,” and her hand twitched like she wanted to salute. “If you’ll excuse me,” and the ex-solider walked past, her gait so even despite her prosthetic leg that if Walter hadn’t known better he’d have sworn she was whole.

 

The old man finished his tea and gave the newspaper up for another time, noticing too late that the Cheshire Cat of a vampire had not only ruined the morning with ridiculous riddles, but had also taken a great big bite out of Walter’s bread roll. “It’s not like you’d even actually swallow it once it’s in your mouth. Why bother stealing what you can’t eat?” he muttered in disgust, throwing the remains to the drab, noisy sparrows. “Shit-stirrer,” and as he walked back to the kitchen to return the cup and teapot, he could hear something sniggering.

 

**

 

Vampires are cold by nature; they reacted to the heat by retreating into storm drains and mausoleums, lurking in the damp coolness as they waited for the heatwave to end. The incidents of reported vampire attacks decreased sharply, as did London’s homeless population when they entered the various vampire lairs with much the same reason in mind. London’s luckier residents stayed at home with icy compresses on their melting foreheads whilst large numbers of obnoxious warm-climate itinerants walked around saying, “Now, this is what’s called a _real_ summer!”

 

All that day Walter sweltered in his office, the windows thrown open in the forlorn hope that a breeze might stagger through. At periodic intervals he’d ring maintenance and ask how soon before the air conditioning was fixed and would be told, not long now, Mr Dornez, almost to the bottom of the problem, Mr Dornez, an hour or two at the most, Mr Dornez, and it was all his could do to stop himself from yelling in frustration. First the gloves came off; then the tie, then finally the vest and shoes and socks and Walter read statistics on missing persons and surfed the net, checking on all the websites and forums of serial killers and vampire wanna-bes, wiggling his toes in the carpet. So hot. He called for the secretary, a fortunate woman who got to wear the lightest of skirts and blouses while he was stuck with long trousers and formal dress shirts.

 

“Please have Sir Integra’s teacart stocked.”

 

The secretary fixed her eyes firmly on the wall behind him and not, as she so obviously wanted to do, on the open collar of his shirt and said, “I think she’s sleeping, sir. She gave orders that she’d be in her apartment in case of emergency.”

 

“I’ll go see her,” said Walter with a frown, not liking the feeling of being left out of the loop. After the secretary left he put his garments to rights and left the stifling office for the even more stifling corridor, where soldiers and various support personnel drooped like wilting flowers.

 

Integra’s private rooms could be accessed via a door in her main office and it was through there Walter walked, silent as a mouse. Through the private study, lined with books and into the large living area, filled with more books, the walls hung with paintings and prints of lions, tigers, jaguars and cheetahs. Integra loved cats, although she’d rather die than admit that, and he would have bought her a kitten a long time ago if he hadn’t known that Alucard would only eat it out of sheer spite and jealousy. The curtains in this room were thrown back, the windows open as far as they could go and the sunshine poured into the room like honey. On the lounge he saw her; before the lounge he stopped still and simply stared, his heart in his mouth. Her hair was braided and pinned to the top of her head, tendrils escaping to glue themselves to her forehead and neck. She wore one of her white shirts, sleeves rolled up and the bottom tied under her breasts, and riding low on her hips and high on her thighs were a pair of skimpy, ancient shorts that he vaguely remembered her thieving from a cousin when she was still a teenager. The expanses of bare skin were sticky with sweat and with the sunlight coming down she looked like a creature made of gold and dark, sticky molasses.

 

Beautiful, was all Walter could think as he watched her sleep, open and vulnerable and so very desirable. Beautiful with her coffee-cream skin darkening, her blonde hair bleaching, her glasses perched precariously on the tip of her nose and a sheaf of papers clutched to her scarred and naked stomach. He stared; he stared for the longest time, wanting to touch her so badly that his hands shook and finally he folded them behind his back and at the soft rasp of cloth a frown darted across her face and her mouth twitched. Walter knew that he was a dead man if she woke and caught him standing over her, so he coughed, discreetly, tearing his gaze away and fixing it on the blue sky outside the window.

 

There was a soft, emphatic click and he lowered his eyes to look down the business end of Integra’s Walther PPK handgun.

 

“Help you?” she asked, her voice slurred by sleep, and, as Walter belatedly noticed an open bottle of pills on the floor beside her, by drugs as well. ‘Walter?” she blinked, her eyes focusing, waking up properly. She looked bemusedly at her gun as though wondering how it had come to be in her hand and then put it away.

 

Walter stared at some place beyond her right ear, and not at all at her breasts or belly or those lovely long legs covered in golden down. A bland, polite smile graced his features. He had, of course, see her wearing far less clothing than this before. “I came to ask if you wanted morning tea, marm.”

 

“Yes. Of course. Very good,” she said. She brushed a lock of hair out of her face as he bowed and turned to leave. “Walter?”

 

“Yes, Sir Integra?”

 

“How- how long were you standing there?”

 

“Marm?” he injected as much puzzlement into his voice as he could.

 

“Never mind.”

 

On the way back to his office to get the tea things, he stopped by a small bathroom. He ran the tap, intending to wash his face, but found that all he could do was clutch the sides of the basin and shake, watch the water run down the porcelain, thanking all the angels in the sky that he’d wanked in the shower that morning and that the inevitable erection as only now starting to form.

 

“God,” he hissed, “God. Jesus Christ almighty, grant me strength.”


	2. Puppetry

_Sucker love, a box I choose.  
No other box I choose to use.  
Another love I would abuse,  
No circumstances could excuse._

 _In the shape of things to come.  
Too much poison come undone.  
Cuz there's nothing else to do,  
Every me and every you.  
Every me and every you,  
Every Me...he_

 _Every You Every Me-_ Placebo

 

 

The heat persisted, and Integra took to sitting in the rose gardens at dusk, a monstrous black hound beside her, the dust and pollution hanging in the air turning the setting sun into a blazing, bloody red. Walter went out there sometimes, on the pretext of having documents signed or relaying some incidental message but the thick perfume drugged him and his tongue would swell in his mouth and refuse to work. He’d be left standing beside them, the third wheel that Integra was too polite to send away, silent as the possessive hound laid its head on its Master’s foot and leered.

 

After these times, Walter would go back to the bed that he had slept in for over sixty years and dream, the heat twisting the pictures until they were as vivid and as bright as waking and not at all restful.

 

He dreamt of a city by the sea, where lassies sang love songs and above them flew icari, Integra among them, burned by the sun to a uniform gold all over. He dreamt of Integra riding on elephants, on tigers, clasping a sucking kitten to her breast, uncaring that needle-like milk teeth had slashed her skin to pieces and blood stained her all over. He dreamt of watching her dance with her Servant, and Walter knew that they were surrounded by ghouls and that Alucard had left his guns behind and that any minute the pair was to be overrun with monsters. Night after night he knelt before her; night after night he pressed his mouth between her legs and sometimes it was the best of dreams and sometimes it was the worst of dreams when her uterus gave birth to briar roses that sprouted and grew and cocooned her in thorns so that he could not see or reach her.

 

He fucked her in a thousand different ways.

 

Willingly, unwillingly, gently or roughly, he fucked her until she laughed or wept or screamed or purred. He made love to her on sheets of silk; he raped her in the desert, pushing her face down into the sand. He sang her lullabies and love songs, gave her bouquets of orchids and roses and wires. Every night he chased her. As a hunter and she a doe, he tracked her in the forest, finally laying down beside her and stroking her trembling fur. The endless legions of ghouls that had tormented him every night since he was fourteen all wore her face. Her face, her eyes, her skin. Integra. Wonderful things, terrible things, the ceaseless heat and monotony making it seem as if his waking was his dreaming and his vivid dreaming his true reality,

 

Then something terrible happened.

 

On an evening like any other Walter walked to Integra’s office, where she’d spend the day in telephone conference with monster hunters across the world. He knew that the conference had surely ended and that she had not eaten and that sooner or later she’d call for him, but the need to see her was like the need for a drug and Walter shed his discipline and went to her.

 

The office was empty, but the door that led to her rooms was ajar and he stood before it, debating with himself as to whether or not he should go through because he could hear voices and there were times when Integra did not like her privacy disturbed. Before Walter could make a decision it opened; Seras Victoria stepped out. Pretty Seras with strawberry hair, pretty Seras with red eyes and white, white skin. Automatically Walter began to bow but he stopped short, frozen by the sight of the unbuttoned neck of her uniform, by the gloves she carried in her hands but not on them. He raised his eyes to her face and was almost paralysed by the sickening tide of rage and knowledge that raced up his spine and filled his mouth with bile. Blushing Seras took one look at his expression and wisely chose to leg it.

 

There was a roaring in his ears and he stumbled forward, through the private study, into the private lounge room. Integra came out of the bedroom. He hair was tousled, her feet bare and she was adjusting the cuffs of her shirt. Slowly, he looked into her eyes and the triumphant look on her face made him want to howl like a madman. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. This was probably for the better.

 

“Ah, Walter,” she said, smiling viciously. “Just in time. I’m hungry. Lamb should do it.”

 

Walter closed his eyes and clenched his fists. He wanted to scream. He wanted to shake her silly. _Fucking lesbian,_ he wanted to say but decades of service throttled the words and replaced them with a bland, “yes, Milady,” and he bowed and left, fast as he could go without actually running.

 

Stopping by the kitchens he left instructions with the chef and carried on down into the depths of the building, the vast vaults that supported the massive weight of stone, brick and timber and hid Hellsing’s ultimate weapon from the world. Down into the damp and dark, down into the domain of Alucard where the air was still and all noises dampened.

 

Walter stopped. Rats skittered all around him, squeaking in annoyance, He gnashed his teeth, grinding them so hard pain began to spread in tendrils from his jaw. 

 

He threw his head back and screamed.

 

 _“Bloody WHOOOOOORRRE!”_ __

“That’ll do, Angel of Death. That will do.” There was a pair of red eyes glowing in the dark.

 

“You knew!”

 

“I suspected. I wasn’t certain.”

 

“Not certain? Aren’t you supposed to be the powerful, all-knowing mind-reading monster?”

 

“What a person says and what a person does are two entirely different beasts,” said Alucard.

 

Taking off his monocle, Walter pinched the bridge of his nose until it hurt. “Don’t you care about this? She’s taken a lover. Your precious Master has taken a female lover.” Alucard said nothing, and Walter blinked. “Proxy,” he blurted.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Victoria is your servant. Your proxy and your puppet. You’re…you’re fucking Integra through her. You sick…”

 

“I wouldn’t put it so crudely.” Walter swayed, would have fallen. Invisible hands caught him and propped him up against the wall. “Tell me, would you be this distraught if Integra’s lover were a man?”

 

“Of course not!”

 

“I, personally, find it rather exciting.”

 

The old man sobbed. “She’s going to hell,” he said, “her soul is tainted forever.”

 

“How very Puritan of you.”

 

Walter sank to his knees and wept like a baby.

 

**

Walter made a decision. After picking himself up and washing his face, he made a beeline for the nearest computer terminal and typed in the first application for leave that he had ever made in his life. The reply came back in the affirmative, and quite rapidly as well; he was a bit miffed about that. It hurt his ego that Integra seemed to be in so much of a hurry to get rid of the man who had hitherto been the most important (living) person in her life, but he was practical enough to grit his teeth and get on with it. He returned back to his bedroom and packed his suitcase with casual clothes he’d barely worn. He packed two toiletry bags, a woman’s red satin nightgown and a mouldering jacket and trousers that he privately thought of as his old codger’s uniform, a spare pair of shoes and an ancient cut-throat razor that he’d acquired in his twenties and had used religiously ever since.

 

He didn’t stop to think. He zipped the suitcase shut and scrabbled in the chest of drawers by his bedside for his passport and went into the bathroom to grab a spare tube of toothpaste. For a moment he hesitated, fascinated by the cracked and crazed image of his own face in the shattered mirror above the bathroom cabinet. He said, “Here’s looking at you, kid,” and his mouth leered at him from a dozen different fragments.

 

Walter didn’t stop to say goodbye, either, did not thank his secretary, and did not stop to farewell Peter Ferguson. Taking the bit between his teeth he stepped smartly through the hallways, up the stairs, barely nodding in response to hails. The sensation was amazing, it felt like a giant fist that had clenched around his heart was gradually loosening its hold. The closer he got to the exit the lighter he felt. The daylight blazing through the doors, hitherto an uncomfortable furnace, now seemed soothing and inviting. Scant metres away from the warm gold he stopped, short, suddenly horrified.

 

What the hell did he think he was doing?

 

What on Earth was he thinking of, leaving at a time like this? The Round Table Council in disturbance and rebellion. Unknown numbers of chipped vampires swarming about the place, originating from only God and their makers knew where. The Queen pressuring the Council, the Council pressuring Integra and in the thick of all that, a traitor, a filthy traitor poisoning everything he touched. The vampire Incognito, the only one who could give the vampire Alucard anything approaching a fair fight. Integra still ill.

 

“I must be insane,” whispered Walter under his breath, “I’ve heatstroke, my brain is frying.”

 

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” snarled Integra from behind him. He hadn’t even realised that she was there. “Just _go.”_

 

Walter squared his shoulders, gritting his teeth in loathing and misery. He marched through the doors, into the bright sunlight, and did not turn around.

 

**

 

He drove to Dover, to the ferry that would carry him across the English Channel into Callas. On the outskirts of France he pulled into a quiet little motel and slept and slept and after that he moseyed along, stopping where and when it suited him, which was often. From there he made his way to the German border at no great speed. All up it took him about three days to reach Germany, and there he left the car in a secured car park and caught the train to Munich. Despite the fact that he drove quite well he had never succeeded in attaining a German drivers’ license but as the public transportation system was perfectly adequate, in this particular instance it was not an issue. The train ride was actually quite soothing and he spent it alternatively reading, brushing up on his Deutsch language skills or else simply sitting with his hands folded in his lap, watching the country fly past his window. Sighing, he took off his tie and crumpled it into his pocket, leant his head on the headrest. He missed Integra; he’d been so desperate to get away from her and now that he was he wanted to go back. Heaving a deep sigh he tried to remember the scent of her hair and skin but all he could smell right now was stale, recycled air and all of a sudden the vile, treacherous image of Seras Victoria flashed across his brain and he clenched his jaw so hard that little sliver dots danced across his vision.

 

Integra was deceitful. Integra had betrayed both him and her own honour. She’d disobeyed the law of the Bible and now she would go to Hell. The pedestal that he’d placed her on was so badly shattered he knew that nothing in the world could ever put it back together again.

 

It was barely three days since he’d seen her last. In the motel in France he had woken up with her name in his mouth and an erection in his pants because he’d been dreaming about her.

 

Integra. The only woman he’d ever loved.

 

Walter sighed, shook his head ruefully. Two parts romantic, one part stalker, or maybe even the other way around. He’d always known that she’d take the revelation of his infatuation badly, but fabricating a sexual relationship with another female, and a female vampire at that, was something on a level he’d never even dreamed of. To be honest, given the number of times he’d been sent down into Alucard’s lair to retrieve the various fetishes the vampire stole from her on a regular basis, knickers, cravats, gloves, cigarillo butts, used menstrual napkins and dirty bandages (Walter generally left the last three where they were) one would think that there would be no unwanted suitor that could throw her.

 

The train shuddered, and through the soles of his shoes he could feel the pulse of the engine changing, slowing down as the carriages were pulled underground, beneath the city. Walter shut the little Deutsch grammar book and tucked it away inside his suitcase. He’d booked himself into a thoroughly modern motel an easy walk from the CBD. Despite the fact he missed her, despite the alien sensation of not being an active part of Hellsing, he realised that he was rather looking forward to his little stay here. He thought of the things he’d packed, the second toiletry bag, the woman’s nightgown, the cutthroat razor in his suitcase and he smiled.

 

The train pulled into the station and Walter waited for the other people to get off. He could have pushed his way to the front easily but he really couldn’t be bothered. A kind lass offered to help his with his suitcase and he demurred politely. The station was dark and dingy, for all that it was so close to the centre of Munich, and he was glad to get out and into the open air. The day was warm, deliciously warm, but not overly so and he was relieved that the crippling heatwave that had struck England had not reached here yet. He yawned with pleasure and decided to take a small detour across Marienplatz to watch the tourists watch the Glockenspiel. It was nearly on the hour when he arrived, and the anticipation was palpable. A long series of almost out of tune music. Some metal figures went around the face of the clock for a little while.  At the end of it all, a knight fell off his horse with a pathetic clang and the hordes of tourists stirred asking, muttering, “That’s it? That’s _it?”_

 

“The Glockenspiel,” announced a smug tourist guide, “Has been called the most overrated attraction in Europe.”

 

“No shit, Sherlock,” yelled one of his charges, and the crowd and Walter dispersed.

 

When he reached the motel, he was quite pleased at what he saw. Clean, spacious and comfortable, the only downside he could see were the swarms of Contiki people, most of them hung over, arranged in various postures of wretchedness and agony about the foyer.

 

“Don’t worry, sir,” said the receptionist in perfect English, “We’ve placed you on a separate floor.” She smiled conspiratorially and because she was pretty, Walter smiled back.

 

“Do you get a lot of these?”

 

“Oh yes. We don’t mind. They’re noisy, but they pay in advance.”

 

“A very practical way of viewing the situation,” agreed Walter, and gathered up his room key. An obscenely drunk man, Australian by the sound of his accent, collapsed directly in front of Walter. The old man stepped over him, noting the monogrammed beer glass that he clutched to his chest, doubtless newly liberated from a beer hall and now on permanent loan without permission.

 

The room that Walter had booked was spacious and fanatically neat. The grey carpets were impeccable; the white coverlet and fitted sheets on the bed were spotless. The furniture was gleaming and placed perfectly square and in short, the military production lines of the place warmed the cockles of Walter’s soldier heart. He sighed blissfully and fell backwards. The mattress, perfect. Grinning at the ceiling, he contemplated the endless possibilities of being able to have a quiet wank without Alucard dropping down from the ceiling and offering to lend a hand. Honestly, that sort of thing could be such a mood killer. Walter grinned for a bit longer but gradually the grin began to fade. In his pocket, the plastic warmed by the heat of his body, was a pager. It hadn’t sounded. Evidentially, Hellsing was functioning fine, just fine without him. This bruised his ego to no end.

 

Ever practical, he picked himself up and had a shower. As he performed his ablutions, he felt his mood gradually lightening until he began to hum. If nothing else, tonight promised to be very diverting and his cutthroat razor glinted so pretty as he shaved. Walter dressed in his old shirt and worn trousers- his old codger’s uniform- and draped the matching jacket over his arm, concealing the plastic bag containing the woman’s nightgown and toiletries. The cutthroat razor he slipped into his back pocket, and with last, venomous look at the pager he’d left lying on the bed, he left the room and walked back through the lobby. He nodded a greeting to the receptionist who didn’t appear to notice, preoccupied as she was in aiding the porter with yet another drunken Australian passed out on the floor. Outside the sky was darkening, steaks of brilliant orange bleeding across deep purple as he set out across the city of Munich. He walked for quite a while. Despite the warmth of a few hours ago it was cooling rapidly and Walter knew that later, he would be grateful for his jacket. He didn’t mind the long walk, and he’d memorised the route to his destination a long time ago.

 

Every city, every town above a certain size has at least one. Some have many. An area, a gathering place for whores and pimps and drug dealers, always coming alive after dark. The bright and shinning tourist area dropped away behind him and gradually he was surrounded by shabby apartments and decrepit warehouses. He spotted the first of the whores, a skinny, underage thing, thick lipstick looking like blood in the streetlight. She smiled desperately and he pointedly looked away. This was the downside when one chose to go to streetwalkers and not to a brothel; unwanted advances, disease, pimps, prostitutes that would much rather drug one and skip the sex and go straight to the bit where they took the money and ran. On the upside, a streetwalker could gossip but they’d never insist on writing down names and phone numbers and in an anonymous pay-by-the-hour hotel no one would care if they heard the sounds of screaming.

 

Munich was a large city and a large city always has men and women prepared to sell sex and men and women prepared to buy it. Cars cruised up and down and punters slouched along with their hands in their pocket, raising their furtive gaze to the merchandise and quickly dropping it back down to the ground. Walter’s gait changed, became a stilted, limping shuffle. He hunched his shoulders and took off his monocle, and just like that, transformed from the dapper and elegant Angel of Death into a tired old man with a bum eye, nervous and fragile and radiating pathetic longing. Walter smiled timidly at a pretty lady with long blonde hair, but his smile faded when he saw the Adam’s apple and the broad hands and realised that she was a he. The punter just ahead of him abruptly turned and headed unerring towards the she-male. Walter noted the punter’s gait and the delicate wrist and his sensitive nose picked up the subtle hormone imbalance that had caused hair to sprout from the punter’s chin. This punter, a near perfect imitation of a man and very likely on the list to have her breasts cut off. Walter wondered which of the unnatural, ungodly freaks would be more surprised when the clothes came off, the customer or the whore.

 

 _“Großvater!_ _He, Großvater!”_ The prostitutes and their pimps thought he was a fantastic joke, apparently. They sang out in German, French, English, a dozen different languages and a hundred different slang words for fucking and fellatio. Walter had been around for a very long time, enough to know that nothing was so bizarre that it wasn’t somebody’s fetish, so none of the sexual acts described surprised him although the crudity did aggravate his gentleman’s palate.

 

He found her, the one he was looking for much sooner than he expected.

 

Long blonde hair to her waist, skin darkened by fake tan and cosmetics. Tall but not too tall, slender but broad across the shoulders. The imitation wasn’t perfect, of course. The breasts were far too large, doubtless enhanced by silicon and the slenderness was caused by routine starvation and not by a healthy diet and exercise. No glasses and although Walter couldn’t quite make out her eyes in the streetlights, he suspected that they were brown and not blue. Nevertheless, the resemblance was uncanny and Walter knew that he could scour the entire city and not find better. His fingers tightened on the plastic bag he held concealed under his jacket and he suppressed a satisfied smile.

 

 _“Gut- Guten Tag,”_ he stammered to the prostitute, who grinned patronisingly back. _“Sie recht... gehen mit mir?_ _Wieviel?”_

 

“I speak English,” interjected the prostitute. “You come with me, _Großvater,_ I make you feel good.”

 

She shot a look, half amused, half contemptuous at her fellow whores and they smirked sadistically back. Taking his arm she led him between a pair of buildings, down an alley.

 

“Hotel… er, _hotal?”_ he said falteringly as she pushed him against a fence and put her hand on his crotch.

 

 _“Scheiße!”_ she spat, forgetting herself for an instant before recovering. He saw a flash of white in the darkness and guessed she was smiling to cover her slip. He could practically smell the contempt radiating off of her skin like cheap perfume. The prostitute tucked his hand into the crook of his elbow and headed off through the alley. Walter shuffled arthritically beside her, stumbling every now and again for authenticity. They were being followed, doubtless by her pimp. It was all Walter could do to stop himself from laughing.

 

They wove their way through darkened alleys and streets until they reached a shabby hotel. In the stained foyer he counted out the nightly rate into the bored receptionist’s hand. He deliberately let the prostitute see just how much money he had left in his pocket (a lot) and let a tremble creep into his hands. He smiled pathetically at the prostitute, who tapped out a text message on her mobile phone. The carpet, although stained, was clean in the hallway to their room and Walter hoped that the room itself would be the same. After fumbling with the key he finally got the door open and was relieved to see that it was indeed the case, that the room was shabby but clean. The prostitute, smiling brilliantly, sashayed inside. Walter shut the door, making sure not to lock it and under the shocked gazed of his companion, stood up straight and shed his helpless old man persona like a coat. He grinned and tossed his jacket onto the bed and took his monocle from his pocket and placed it on his nose where it belonged.

 

“I want,” said Walter in perfect German, “for you to take a shower.” He handed her the plastic bag. The prostitute opened it and looked inside. “I want you to use everything that’s there.” She held up a shampoo bottle, nearly empty. A long blonde hair was caught in the lid. Walter said, “When you’re done, put this on,” and he draped the red satin nightgown over her shoulder. Disgust flickered across her features before she caught herself and obediently turned and went into the bathroom.

 

Walter turned down the lights and sat down quietly on the bed to wait. It didn’t take long. The doorknob began to turn slowly, slowly, and a man- the prostitute’s pimp- slunk inside. He was momentarily blinded by the change in light and Walter was on top of him before his eyes could adjust. The Angel of Death did not use his wires. Instead he whipped the cutthroat razor out of his pocket and pressed it to the pimp’s throat.

 

“Little monster,” crooned Walter to the terrified man. “Little slave driver. Little pimp. Why are you here, little pimp?”

 

“You speak German,” gasped the pimp.

 

“Well-spotted,” said Walter agreeably, “but you didn’t answer my question.”

 

“I just wanted to take care of my girl,” the pimp whined, “there’s all sorts in the world. You never know what could happen. What crazies are planning.”

 

“You’re right. There are all sorts in the world, all sorts of crazy people,” and Walter punched the pimp in the throat. He doubled over, trying to speak, trying to breathe, trying to force air through paralysed vocal chords. The sounds of the shower drifted out from the bathroom and the pimp was completely unable to scream as Walter cut off his finger. “Want it back?” Walter picked up the severed digit and shoved it into the pimp’s mouth. “Listen to me very carefully. The lady and I do not want to be disturbed.  If we _are_ disturbed, for example, by a group of you and your friends seeking revenge, I will cut off _all_ of your fingers _and_ your scrotum _and_ your head.” The pimp spat his finger into his palm and stared at Walter in horror as threads of bloody saliva ran down his chin. “I’d run now, if I were you. If you make it to a hospital quickly enough they might be able to reattach it.

 

The pimp fled. Walter stripped the blood from the razor with thumb and forefinger and nudged the door shut. This time, he locked it. He turned the lights back up and sat back down on the bed. He admired the coldly glittering metal as he turned the blade over and over in his hands. He’d always held an unhealthy fascination with these things and he took off his ruined gloves. Silly him; he should have worn leather and not cotton, that way he could have simply rinsed the blood off but he had other pairs of gloves in his suitcase back at the hotel, so he supposed that it didn’t really matter.

 

The shower stopped. Footsteps slapped across the tiles and a tap turned on and off. Not long now. Walter shuddered in anticipation. This was going to be amazing. His erection made his trousers seem unbearably tight. The prostitute was taking her own sweet time, presumably waiting for her pimp to arrive. If Walter were in a more generous mood he would have felt sorry for her, but right now he couldn’t have cared less.

 

The bathroom door opened. The prostitute stepped out, elegant in red satin. Her eyes flicked, and then fixed, on the wet, dark stain on the carpet beside Walter. Her mouth gaped in terror, and Walter advanced on her. He snapped the cutthroat razor open and pressed it to the hollow between her collarbones.

 

“Listen to me very carefully,” he said. “I do not want to hurt you. I will not if you do as I say.” She nodded. “Right here, right now,” he said, “Your name is irrelevant. Do you understand?” She nodded again and began to cry. “So long as you obey you’re perfectly safe. Hurting you is not the purpose of this little role play. And don’t bother trying to grab the razor and use it against me. I have other weapons.” And Walter smiled, and touched her cheek.  He said in English, “You eyes are blue in this light. Dark blue, but still blue. I think that you’re as close to the real thing as I could ever get.” He leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to her mouth. He touched her breast, covered in straining satin. “Oh,” he said, “you’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful, Integra,” and he put the razor in his pocket and kicked off his shoes and pushed her down onto the bed. He buried his face in her wet, fragrant hair.

 

“I love you. I really do.”

 

She smelled right, felt right, long hair tangling around his fingers. The subtle resistance of her body under his only increased his excitement. It was so close to how he’d imagined it he could lose himself in it; forget just how pathetic he really was.

 

He started with her feet. A tender kiss to her toes, and he trailed his tongue up to her ankles and laughed when he found a patch of stubble just above it, where she’d missed when she had shaved. It made her seem just that more real. “I love you,” he said, biting his way up her leg. He paused to tickle her behind the knee and was gratified when she jerked in response. She did not fake arousal, laid quiet underneath him. He was happy with that. She smelled like Integra, looked like her in the dim light, and her long wet hair tangled around his fingers and the red satin nightgown, the slippery smooth material so pleasurable against his naked skin when he paused to take off his clothing.

 

Walter turned her around and around, touching her everywhere. The simulacrum that Alucard had fashioned had been physically perfect, but no matter how much blood Walter had given the vampire, it was always too cold. It has been so long since Walter had lain with a real, living woman and he’d forgotten that delicious warmth, the little noises that they made when he hurt them, the way their hearts thudded against his palm when he held their breasts. “I love you. I love you,” and the illusion, the fantasy was so perfect that he forgot it was a fantasy and the hatred and the rage welled up in him so suddenly that he slammed her down against the mattress with his weight.

 

“How could you?” he hissed. “I loved you, trusted you, and you betrayed me! You didn’t have to return my love,” he buried his face in her neck, “But you didn’t have to do that. Not that.”

 

It was then that the prostitute did something that very likely saved her life. Prompted by survivor’s instinct she brought her shaking arms about the old man and embraced him, very gently. She pressed a tender kiss to his ear and he raised his head, kissed her back. It was a slow kiss at first, but it gradually got harder until Walter could taste blood from either her mouth or his own. It excited him.

 

Embarrassing, adolescent fumbling with a condom; he pulled the nightgown up and entered her, coming convulsively in great waves. He shuddered for the longest time, and then was still.


	3. Puppetry

_Sucker love is known to swing.  
Prone to cling and waste these things.  
Pucker up for heaven’s sake.  
There's never been so much at stake._

 _I serve my head up on a plate.  
It's only comfort, calling late.  
Cuz there's nothing else to do,  
Every me and every you.  
Every me and every you,  
Every Me...he_

 __

 _Every You Every Me –_ Placebo

 

 

It was just beginning to get light when Walter stirred, unwrapped himself from around the prostitute and stretched until his joints popped. He shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the light. His face in the mirror, grey and lined, old and sly and he thought about smashing the glass but decided that it would be too clichéd. If one was going to trash a hotel room, one should at least find a hotel room worth trashing.

 

 

Back in the bedroom he straightened his wrinkled, musty-smelling clothes as best he could and put his shoes back on. The prostitute hadn’t moved; she was still curled up into a defensive ball, tense and wary. She made not a whimper as Walter went through her handbag. He found a photograph of a smiling child and an ATM card with a name on it that Walter said out loud. He said, “I don’t suppose that I have to impress upon you the need for confidentiality?”

 

“Not a word spoken,” she replied bitterly, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

He nodded once in satisfaction. He set her artefacts back down on the table and added some money from a clip in his pocket. It said a lot about Walter in that he honestly thought that money would make up for what he’d done to her. “One last thing: the gown, please.” Without so much as a blush she sat up, pulled the red satin nightgown up and over her head and threw it at him. He stuffed it into the plastic bag he’d brought with him, opened the door and stepped through it. He hunched his shoulders, took off his monocle and shuffled arthritically down the corridor towards the fire exit. No alarms went off as he opened it; evidently, given the hotel’s policy of paying in advance, the management were indifferent as to whether or not their clients chose a discrete exit. All to the better.

 

On the fire escape he paused to look over the buildings of the industrial estate, bleeding the vivid red dawn light. He thought about finding a quiet nook somewhere and burning the red satin nightgown- worn first by a transgender vampire and then by a German prostitute and soiled with his own semen- but he knew that it would be a purely meaningless gesture. Walter loved Integra, and he would return to her whether she wanted him or not. She had never worn the nightgown, never would, but it would always remain as an enduring symbol of her.

 

The moment passed. The sun lifted and the bleeding lightened into orange. Walter sighed. He would go back to the motel where he had his luggage. He would check his pager, and then he would shower, eat and sleep. Then he would go to the antique stores and buy some useless trinket that he would never have the balls to give her. Then he would catch a train back to London because there really was no point in hanging around in this city, or in any other.

 

**

 

He was on the ferry, going across the English Channel when his hitherto silent pager sounded, cutting across the whining drone of some jet-lagged international tourist bitching about what the English alleged was fast food. Walter frowned and set his newspaper down on the grubby table. The code flashing across the screen wasn’t an urgent one; it told the receiver that everything was fine but may be not be fine in the future. Standby. Further instructions may or may not follow. He’d seen this code many, many times before and rarely had anything come of it (with Hellsing it was usually a well-managed operation or a fully-fledged, completely unexpected disastrous cock-up, making advance warnings to off-duty members fairly pointless) but nevertheless he couldn’t help but feel a slow shiver slide up his spine. A quick glance at the clock told him that the ferry would be coming into Dover in the next twenty minutes. He put the pager back on his belt and went back to his newspaper, ogling the shapely, bikini-clad redhead on page four. _The Sun_ was a guilty pleasure that he didn’t often get to indulge. On the rare occasions he’d been busted with it he’d blinked guilelessly and said that he liked the crossword puzzles. He didn’t think that any single person had believed him yet.

 

Turning the page his eyes flicked across an article attributing the continuing heatwave to the activities of extraterrestrials in spaceships fitted with gigantic thermal mirrors, claiming that the aliens were in a conspiracy with the American government, aimed at eliminating Britain from the face of the Earth and thus from the long list of countries pressuring America to ratify the Kyoto Protocols. Walter thought that such a conspiracy would imply rather more diplomatic negotiation, foresight and planning than the current American government was capable of so he skipped ahead. _Vampire ABCs Preying on Pets_ proclaimed the heading, and Walter instantly focused his full attention on it.

 

 _Vampire Alien Big Cats are among us, feeding on the blood of our helpless dogs and cats!_

 _Sarah Cooper, age six, went to feed her pet rabbits in their backyard and found them lying in the bottom of their hutch, necks broken, drained of blood. She looked up to see a huge spotted cat, the size of a jaguar, perched on the roof of the garden shed and watching her. It ran off when she screamed._

 

The article went on to list a number of similar occurrences and then diverted into a separate and entirely irrelevant discussion of the chupacabra. Walter shut off at this point and instead focused on the alleged locations: London and the outer suburbs of London. Oh dear.

 

Walter tapped the newspaper with a forefinger, and then gave up. Resisting calling Hellsing for news had been a point of pride for him but this- this was important. Obviously the media team would already know about the reports of these bloodsucking ABCs but that was beside the point. He abandoned his newspaper and got up, pushing past never ending crowds of tourists to the stairs that went up to the top deck. There in the wind, away from the crowds leaning over the rails to get the first glimpse of Dover, he flipped open his mobile and thumbed through the list of numbers. He found himself staring stupidly at the direct line to Integra.  _“Go on,”_ he hissed under his breath. _“Go on, you fucking coward, I dare you,”_ but of course he couldn’t. Instead he found the number for his own personal secretary- the retainer’s retainer, if one wanted to be amusing- and dialled.

 

 _“Mr Dornez?”_ she sounded sleepy.

 

“The very same. I’m on the ferry pulling into Dover now.”

 

 _“That’s good to hear.”_ A yawn. _“We’ve missed you.”_

Walter rolled his eyes, but the charming and polite tone of his voice didn’t change at all. “Are things well? I received a standby message on my pager...”

 

 _“Oh, that,”_ said the secretary, _“Don’t worry about it. Everything’s fine.”_ She yawned again. _“Everything’s perfect,”_ and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

 

“Why did the standby message go out?”

 

 _“Oh, someone saw something in the roses, but it was only Sir Integra.”_

“Where are Lord Alucard and Seras Victoria?”

 

 _“Um, I don’t know. Scotland. I think. Something like that.”_

Walter ended the call without so much as saying goodbye. He dialled Integra’s direct line and listened to it ring out. As the ferry shuddered and came to the dock he dialled every single number in the Hellsing organisation. Most of them went unanswered. The few that did bother to pick up the phone were just as sleepy and drugged-sounding as the secretary had been, and were thoroughly unhelpful. Everything was fine, they said. Just fine.

 

He went back down into the ferry and collected his luggage from the lockers, his head whirling. What should he do now? Of course, the obvious answer was to ring the security agencies and tell them...tell them what, exactly? That some people in Hellsing weren’t answering their phones? That the ones that were sounded a little bit sleepy? In this heat, this blazing heat he’d left the country to avoid, maybe that wasn’t such a hard thing to understand. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help the thin thread of fear sliding into his gut. He had to get back to Hellsing. And quickly.

 

Throughout the laborious process of docking he waited by the passenger doors, and waited again as those passengers streamed through. As tempting as it was to simply push his way to the front and by done with it, it would be difficult with luggage and detrimental to his plans. Taxis, after all, were far too easy to trace and he strongly doubted that the lift he’d been promised by the Hellsing car fleet would actually arrive. So once again he took off his monocle, his tie and his vest, rumpled his hair and hunched over, radiating helplessness. He shuffled along behind the crowd headed towards the car park, blinking and squinting in puzzlement. Slipping his watch discretely into his pocket he looked around for a likely bunch of villains. “Excuse me,” he croaked pathetically, sidling up beside a young lad. “Do you have the time? My daughter was supposed to here to pick me up...”

 

The boy would have been barely twenty, and looked like a fine, upstanding young gentleman. He smiled an utterly charming smile while his companions hid their smirks. He was handsome, neatly dressed, and had dead, dead eyes.

 

“It’s getting late,” he said. “Are you all right? Do you need to call someone?”

 

“Oh,” said Walter fluttering his hands helplessly. “My daughter...my daughter is so unreliable. She forgot to pay the bill so she doesn’t have a telephone. She said she’d be here. She said...oh, dear.”

“There, there,” said the boy, patting Walter on the shoulder. He flashed a grin at his companions and Walter knew instantly that he’d had the boy dead to rights. Walter was a charming monster, and he knew a fellow charming monster when he saw one.

 

“I don’t want to take a taxi,” he whined. “They’re dirty and dangerous. I hate them. Oh, but I have to go home. I’m so tired. My terrible daughter,” he wrung his hands helplessly.

 

“Where are you going?” asked the boy with a flawless imitation of concern.

 

Walter named a little suburb very close to Hellsing, and watched the boy’s face.

 

“Why, what a co-incidence! We’re going very near there! Would you like a lift?”

 

“Oh!” he cried joyously, “Really? Would you be so kind?”

 

“Not at all,” said the boy with a flawless expression of concern.

 

“I can pay you,” and Walter produced a handful of crumpled notes from his pocket. The boy’s companions smirked and nudged each other and the old man knew that they planned to beat him and rob him. Not because they needed the money, going by their clothes and the car, but just for fun. In a way Walter could sympathise, being violent and sadistic himself, but he really thought that such tendencies should be expressed in a more appropriate manner. Like joining the SAS, for example, and going to enemy countries and lurking in holes in the desert and eating snakes with the rest of the freaky little SAS nutjobs. So he didn’t feel very sorry for them as he allowed them to bundle him up and into their car.

 

He was set in between another boy of about eighteen and a girl who seemed a little younger. Her thigh pressed delightfully against his and he smiled in satisfaction. The cutthroat razor he’d tucked into the waistband of his trousers and it dug into his stomach, uncomfortable and comforting all at the same time. It was so pathetically easy. If he hadn’t been so concerned about Hellsing he would have been depressed about how easy it was, but there was no time for that so he just sighed and leant his head back, pretended to doze. The girl seemed uneasy; perhaps she realised that he was actually enjoying the close proximity, perhaps she had suddenly discovered that she had a conscience.  Ultimately irrelevant either way.

 

They headed towards London, that much they’d told the truth about, circled the city, heading vaguely in the direction of Hellsing. The motorway was crowded so Walter had plenty of time to plan what he was going to do next. When the approached the right exit he sighed, sat up straight, pulled his monocle from his pocket and the cut throat razor from his trousers. He flicked it open, pushed it against the throat of the boy next to him and said politely, “Turn here, please.”

 

“What?” said the leader, the one who was driving.

 

“I said turn here,” he repeated, clipping the monocle chain to his ear. “Otherwise I’ll cut his throat. I killed my first German when I was fourteen, so don’t think I’m bluffing.”

 

The girl whimpered and pressed against the door, trying to get away from him. They turned off the motorway and into a smaller road. The boy who was driving kept sneaking glances at him through the rear vision mirror, and shaking his head like he couldn’t quite figure out what was happening. When the car drew close to a stoplight Walter slid his arm around his captive’s neck and pressed the razor to the opposite side, so that he couldn’t run. The girl had no such qualms. As soon as the car stopped she scrabbled at the handle, pushed the door open, unclipped her seatbelt and ran for it. Walter was happy as it gave him fewer hostages to watch: the boy beside him, and the two in front. Packs like this tended not to care much about their female members, unless the females were actually the leaders; obviously not the case here so she was a liability and valueless as a hostage. He said, “You, in front, in the passenger seat. You can leave too. Shut the door behind you.” The boy in front fumbled at his seatbelt and all but fell out of the car. And then there were three: the driver, the hostage and Walter himself.

 

“Listen man,” said the driver, “You want the car, you can take it. We’ll give to you, okay? Money as well if you want it. Just let my mate go, yeh? There’ll be no hard feelings.”

 

Walter clicked his tongue in irritation. “You little idiot. I don’t want your car, or your money.”

 

“Howzabout a blowjob?” gasped his hostage. Walter snarled.

 

“You’d like that wouldn’t you, you deviant little pillow biter,” he hissed. “Well, I hate to disappoint you. All I want is a ride. So keep driving. Just go straight ahead.”

 

 The traffic was dense and it took an hour to come close to where Hellsing was located. Walter was tense, waiting for his pager to beep or his mobile phone to ring. Despite the air conditioner being on at full blast it was hot, and sweat kept sliding unpleasantly down his face. He couldn’t wipe it off because he held the razor in one hand and had the boy in a finger lock with the other. “Turn left here. Turn right now. You stupid boy, you’ve missed it. You’ll have to turn around.” When the driver began to whine he snapped his hostage’s finger. The car suddenly reeked of urine and Walter curled his lip. Through the windscreen towering storm clouds glowered above the horizon. The day’s heat was going to be broken violently.

 

“Pull over here.” It was a small country lane, bordered on one side by an ancient dry stone wall, and something filled with exotic weeds that was allegedly a forest. “Get out. Open the boot and take out my luggage.” Walter watched the driver carefully as he went behind the car, and then there was the sound of the boot being opened. The old man judged it time to go; he hauled his hostage out through with him and led him behind the car. The boy, the leader of the little gang, stood watching and trying helplessly to hide the big wet stain on his jeans with his hands.  Walter searched the hostage’s pockets until he found a wallet. Flipping it open to the drivers’ license, he repeated the tactic that he’d used on the German whore. He added, “I know who you are and where you live. So it would be good for all of us to keep this our little secret, hmm?” He flung the boy to the ground. “Run, children. Run home now.”

 

The boys didn’t need to be told twice. They bolted to the car and jumped in, sped off. They forgot to close the boot so when they turned a corner, a suitcase fell out and onto the ground. Despite his nagging worry, Walter couldn’t help but smile. In to the woods he went.

 

 _“Hey there, Little Red Riding Hood,”_ he hummed as he made his way through the thick undergrowth. These were the woods that surrounded the Hellsing estate, kept it isolated, kept it safe. Periodically some environmentalist would complain about the severe weed infestation that made the English forest look more like a cold-climate jungle, but the dense vegetation damped the noise of gunshots and made it difficult for people to sneak in. It was booby-trapped, of course, traps that Walter avoided easily. After all, he’d put most of them there himself. He exchanged his white shirt for a dark one and stashed his luggage in a hollow made by fallen tree trunks, covered it with leaves. The air felt thick and heavy. Sultry, that was the word for it, the humidity so thick it felt like he could bite and chew it, the light fading as the storm clouds moved in. Walter was fantastically fit but he couldn’t help but feel tired.

 

It took him close to an hour to reach the outskirts of the estate proper. The fences were still electrified, the cameras still operational, and when Walter patched into the security system through a minor maintenance screen he saw no errors or warnings on the display. He considered tripping the system deliberately to alert the guards to his presence but instinct screamed that that would be a bad idea. It was entirely possible that there was nothing wrong and the staff he’d spoken to were just sleepy with the heat, but he didn’t really believe that. Something was wrong. Something was drastically wrong. Something terrible had infested Hellsing and Walter realised that he never should have allowed Integra to drive him away.

 

He kept going, slipping in through the backdoors that he’d deliberately built in when he’d designed the security system and he was almost out of the woods when he caught the first scent of perfume.

 

Peering out from cover, he could see the firing range, the barracks, and the mansion proper. And, monstrously, the rose garden.

 

Sleeping Beauty; Briar Rose. The roses were huge and tangled, a good twenty feet high. Even as far away as he was he could make out the splashes of colour that must be the blooms, each the size of a man’s head. Walter shuddered as he remembered what his secretary had said:

 

 _“Oh, someone saw something in the roses, but it was only Sir Integra.”_

 

Oh God. Integra.

 

He put his gloved hand in his mouth and bit down. He took a deep breath and shuddered again as a wave of weakness washed over him. Dizzy from the scent of roses he bit harder and harder until the pain began to clear his head. Think. He had to think.

 

As he watched, the door to the barracks opened and a patrol stumbled out. Their uniform was askew; boots were missing here and there, hair uncombed. Out of step they attempted a basic formation and failed miserably. He studied their faces carefully, looking for the tell-tale grey complexion and bloody teeth of zombies, but all he saw were glazed expressions and a lot of nasal discharge dripping unheeded across slack mouths. A good, old fashioned drug and that drug, obviously, came from the roses. As the soldiers stumbled along he realised that something was going to a lot of trouble to make the place look normal for the outside. It was a trap; a trap for Alucard most likely, with Integra as the bait.

 

But the secretary said that Alucard was in Scotland.

 

Walter had to find her. He had to find Integra. She was there, somewhere, amongst the roses.

 

A nearby security hut yielded a pair of near-catatonic security guards. One was short with broad shoulders, the other was tall with a slender waist. Neither made so much as a whisper of protest as he stripped the first of his uniform coat and the other of his uniform pants. Thinking that any unexpected noises would give him away, Walter abandoned his beeper and his mobile phone. He buckled a gun belt around his waist and tucked his cutthroat razor into a pouch and left the two guards were they were, propped up against each other and staring blindly into the distance.

 

He did his best to look as slack-jawed and stupid as everyone else and found that he didn’t have to try too hard. He staggered towards the car shed and it felt like it took him hours to get there but it probably only took him a few minutes. A container of petrol was easy to find; matches were harder, he turned around and around, wondering where some might be until the thought crawled across his head that of course there would be some in the emergency survival kits that were stationed at regular intervals, just about everywhere. Each kit designed to keep a single man going for two days, with thin rations and basic survival gear like a tarpaulin and medical supplies. And, most importantly, a box of waterproof matches, as long as his hand and able to strike a flame in a downpour. He shoved the matches into his pockets and left the shed, the container of petrol banging against his knee as he stumbled.

 

It was so heavy and the fumes combined with the rose scent to make his head swim and he gasped and swayed. Every step he took seemed difficult at first, but strangely, the closer he got to the roses the easier it became, as though something was helping him, guiding him, lifting and lowering his limbs for him. Something brushed his face and he looked up wonderingly at the briars, the leaves dry and brown at the edges, thorns as long as his thumbs. A huge rose blossom turned its head to watch him go by as he entered the labyrinthine garden, and he was struck by a strange sense of inevitability, as though everything in his life had been leading up to this exact point. His limbs didn’t seem like his own; he thought, _this is puppetry,_ and then he heard Integra calling his name.

 

Things flickering through the undergrowth; somewhere deep inside of him, Walter knew that he should be afraid but all he wanted was to go to her, to go to Integra and he felt something liquid warm pour down his spine and he shivered, realising that he had an erection. The petrol container was heavy and unpleasant; he heard the purring and wondered why he’d brought the nasty-smelling thing. It began to slip from his hand and his fingers suddenly flexed, clamping down on the handle in an iron grip. Between the perfume and the purr he couldn’t say why it was important to hold onto the container, only that it was.

 

He kept moving, watching yellow eyes blink at him, black-tipped tails flicking through the undergrowth. In the centre of the maze, on the stone bench where he’d so often sat, was Integra. He lost the grip on the petrol container and it fell on his foot. He didn’t care.

 

Wearing only a white shirt, the length only just long enough to cover her sex but not her backside, her hair falling down around her face, blood tricking from the old wound in her neck that had once again been torn open, she rested her cheek on her knees and regarded him sleepily.

 

“H’lo, Walter,” she slurred, and he whined and tried to go to her. His knees gave out from under him halfway there and he could only sprawl helplessly, like a marionette with its strings cut. The purring got louder. He couldn’t think. Who was Walter? She got up, those glorious long legs unbelievably perfect. A ray of light peered through the rapidly shifting clouds, briefly illuminating her like a goddess and she walked to him and he’d never been so terrified in all his life and he’d never wanted anything so badly, either.

 

She unbuttoned her blood-stained shirt, her breasts swaying in time with her footsteps. The jaguar showed itself properly for the first time, slipping between her legs and nuzzling at her crotch. Petting it absentmindedly, she stood over him, studying him like he was a particularly interesting species of insect. She nudged him with her foot and he kissed it, licking at her ankle like a slave.

 

She said, “You’re pathetic,” and he wanted to cry. The jaguar pushed its head against her hand, rumbling in approval. She put her foot on the centre of his chest and pushed him flat against the ground. He lay there, completely helpless as she regarded him dispassionately. The moment stretched on and on until she suddenly smiled, utterly secure in her power. She straddled him, and sank down on her haunches until her hips touched his. Then she leaned forward and- God- brushed her lips against his- oh God- and her tongue slid into his mouth and she _kissed_ him, they were kissing and it was everything Walter had ever dreamt of and he wanted to throw up. Raising her head she rubbed it against the jaguars’, kissing its muzzle. It hissed and nudged her back as if to tell her to get on with it.

 

Looking down on him she ran a ragged fingernail around the edge of his collar, tracing the line of the fabric, before unsnapping the top button and every other button on his jacket after that. She licked a nipple through the fabric of his shirt, then bit hard and laughed when he yelped in pain. “I want to touch you,” he told her.

 

“Shut up,” she replied. “I don’t want to hear your voice.” She got up, moved further down. She fiddled with the gun belt, stripping the gun holster off and throwing it far away. Flexing his burning fingers inside his gloves it occurred to Walter that there was something very important that he was forgetting, but that thought vanished like steam in the air as she opened the fly on his trousers and pulled them open. The head of his erection pressed through his underwear and he realised that he really was crying, tears were trickling from the corners of his eyes and soaking into the hair at his temples and he sobbed as she took him in hand and squeezed, oh so gently. Without taking off his underwear she raised her hips and settled over him and the thin fabric between them was the worst torture imaginable. Her hair fell down around her face as she began to rock, the sight of her, the smell of her, the sound of the jaguar purring, and he cried and cried like a baby because he wanted her and he was helpless and he knew that this was nothing but violation, of his mind, his body and his soul.

 

“What’s the matter?” she whispered. “Don’t you want me? Why are you crying, Walter?” she pressed a tender kiss to his temple, her breasts brushing against him.

 

“Please stop,” he whimpered.

 

Heavy lids slid over brilliant blue eyes. She didn’t, she kept moving and moving and Walter knew that it would all be over if he could just come but he couldn’t. It went on for a very long time. He heard someone groaning and realised, dimly, that it was himself and finally, finally he shuddered and knew he was close. The jaguar crept closer as he got louder, grinning as only a painted cat could, the huge fangs capturing his gaze when he turned his eyes away from Integra’s face. Closer. Closer. The jaguar came closer and Walter realised that he was going to come and that he couldn’t close his eyes. Utterly helpless as the orgasm went on and on, he saw the flash of steel in Integra’s hand as she used his razor to slash the jaguar’s throat.


	4. Chapter 4

_Like the naked leads the blind.  
I know I'm selfish, I'm unkind.  
Sucker love I always find,  
Someone to bruise and leave behind._

 _All alone in space and time.  
There's nothing here but what here's mine.  
Something borrowed, something blue.  
Every me and every you.  
Every me and every you,  
Every Me...he_

 ____

_Every You Every Me –_ Placebo

 

The screaming went on for a very long time.

 

It was eerie, bizarre, at one end of the spectrum a woman in pain, at the other the raging screech of an infuriated big cat and in the middle, an utterly indescribable and terrifying combination of the two.  Walter curled up into a ball, too dazed to do anything but listen. Grass and dead leaves crackled underfoot as Integra got up and walked away. Three ear-splitting gunshots; the screaming stopped. A rustling of cloth and he knew she was getting dressed.

 

She said, “I’m beginning to think that Grandfather’s boast about eliminating Carmila’s little family was very much off the mark. I can understand him missing one, but missing two of them? Very peculiar. There’s no doubt in my mind that this one was an old one and not a chipped vampire. The Valentine brothers were very powerful, but they weren’t able to shape shift. And they certainly weren’t able to do something like this.”

 

He looked up. She was leaning over the corpse, studying the pulped brain matter with intense curiosity. Then, decisively, she stood up straight and kicked at the mangled tissue until it was separated from the stump of the neck.

 

“See this?” she touched one of the monstrous blooms, shaking it on its stem. It released a cloud of pollen that made Walter cough and choke. “This mutation must have taken a long time to establish. They’ve been here for months. Alucard is slipping. I simply must talk to him firmly about this. Oh, Walter, do get up. Was it really that bad?” And she made to touch him, the open collar of her shirt stiff with drying blood. He flinched and she shook her head, half with amusement, half with exasperation. “Suit yourself,” she said. She pulled her cravat from her pocket and used it to tie back her hair.

 

Walter rubbed his temples and coughed, trying to clear his lungs. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. There was a sudden, cold gust of wind, then another, then another bringing with it the sharp smell of ozone and rain. The first big droplets fell, splattering and beading in the dust and the heatwave was finally over.

 

The first hour of rain was sufficient to subdue the mind-controlling pollen and fragrance. Personal began to stumble into the foyer, blank-eyed, puzzled and frightened by the gaps in their memory and clutching their guns like protective talismans. Walter had changed out of his soiled and borrowed garments and was there to meet them. Integra had gone back outside to the roses, armed with paper bags and plastic sheets and the aim of preserving what evidence she could in the downpour. Bemused crime scene inspectors went out her in drips and drabs as they started to understand what had happened. For his part, Walter was slow and languid, limbs heavy like they didn’t belong to him at all. He felt stunned, unclean and was horrified when the crime scene people came back in carrying bags of mutant rose blooms and roots and stems.

 

“What the hell are you doing, bring that in here?”

 

“Sir Integra’s orders, sir.”

 

“Then get it straight to the laboratory! Don’t leave it here!”

 

Not all of the staff were recovering as quickly. There were still a great many standing aimlessly around, or sitting down on the floor, leaning against the wall or each other. A handful of them suddenly developed asthma symptoms and Walter found himself slapping a medic or two into sensibility so that they could care for them. He rounded up the most lively of the soldiers and sent them off on a staggered patrol around the estate. The kitchens started up in anticipation of a sudden influx of cold, hungry men. The armoury was confronted with the reality of dozens of missing or damaged guns and went into a full-blooded panic. The outside world suddenly realised that Hellsing had effectively dropped off the face of the Earth and ten different phones rang all at once. When Walter next looked at the clock it was midnight, it had been raining for hours and two medics were standing in front of him with panicked expressions.

 

“What now?”

 

“Sir Integra’s in the infirmary again, sir. She collapsed.”

 

The old man rubbed his tired eyes. “Why?”

 

“Blood loss. In the rain no one noticed that she was bleeding-”

 

The wound on her neck. Oh yes. He heard the whining thump of a helicopter overhead and knew that Alucard had finally returned and Commander Ferguson with him. He went out to the helicopter pad to greet them. Nodding stiffly to Ferguson, he turned his attention to Alucard. Kitten-like, Seras Victoria peeked out behind her master, huge blue eyes wide and startled.

 

“Your orders are to patrol the estate. Look for any intruders. Release the hounds,” and Alucard smiled. Walter turned his back on the grinning lunatic and from somewhere in the darkness came the howl of the dogs of the Wild Hunt.

 

It was just dawn when Alucard sought him out.

 

Walter was finally alone in his rooms. His hair soaking, muffled in a heavy robe, too tired to sleep he sat in his armchair, waiting.

 

“You’ve been busy, Reaper.”

 

“Yes.”

 

He looked up. Alucard had discarded his coat, hat and glasses. The vampire lounged in Walter’s bed, running the red satin nightgown through his gloved hands, rubbing it up against his face to feel the texture and smell the myriad of scents on it.

 

“You’re slipping, you really are,” said the old man wearily. “You missed Carmila under your nose, and now you’ve missed a jaguar with a fetish for fairytales.”

 

“Fairytales?”

 

“Briar Rose. Sleeping Beauty. Jungles of thorns and roses.”

 

Alucard sucked a section of hem into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Walter was too tired to care. “That’s true enough,” he confessed. “But keep in mind that I’ve been occupied with regular inclusions by the vampire Incognito. His power is an easy mask for any smaller one and besides, once they’re in Integra’s head I can’t see them anymore.” He spat out the cloth. “Tastes like German.”

 

“You ate enough of them in the war. Why are you complaining now?”

 

“I wasn’t complaining. It was a simple statement of fact. Besides, the only relation taste has to nationality is diet. This is why so many English taste _dreadful.”_ He narrowed his eyes when Walter just shrugged, refused to rise to the bait.

 

“Could we do this some other time? I need to sleep.”

 

Alucard hissed like a kettle letting off steam. “You’re hiding your thoughts,” he accused.

 

“I said I’m tired.” The old man allowed his eyelids to droop, suddenly conscious of a deep, black pit in front of him. He shuddered and began to fall.

 

 _Sniff._

 _Sniff._

 

 _Sniiiiiiff_ _._ __

Walter snapped awake. The vampire was leaning over him, smelling him. Protest was met by long fingers wrapping delicately around his throat.

 

Sniff. Sniff. Nuzzling at Walter’s neck as tenderly as any lover, the vampire moved down until at last he reached the old man’s groin.

 

 _Snnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiifff_ _._ __

“Well, well,” purred Alucard, grinning terribly. There was an impossible amount of teeth in his mouth and their proximity to tender places made Walter blanche. “So you finally got what you wanted, Angel of Death. Was it good? Was it like you’d dreamed?”

 

“Get off me,” spat Walter in reply, but he’d taken off his rings to shower and hadn’t yet put them back on.

 

Snickering, the vampire let go and rested his head in Walter’s lap. “Oh, lover, what am I going to do with you?” Walter pushed him away in disgust. He jumped back on the bed. “I will never cease to be puzzled by you humans. You had received your heart’s desire and here you are bitching about it.”

 

“It wasn’t like that,” said Walter desperately, “It was nothing like I wanted.”

 

“Isn’t there a saying? Be careful what you wish for?”

 

 _“She violated me!”_

 

A short silence. Tilting his head to one side, Alucard said, “So?”

 

Walter laughed bitterly. “Don’t you have views about that sort of thing?”

 

“Well, yes, but you must admit, you did it to her first.”

 

“I never laid a finger on her that she didn’t ask for!”

 

“But you enjoyed it in all the wrong ways,” and the old man felt suddenly, like something was tapping at his temple. A sensation of something slimy slipping in  through his ear; Alucard invaded his head and Walter gritted his teeth, feeling memories being picked up, examined, and either carefully set aside for further consideration or discarded as unimportant. The vampire seemed especially interested in the walk through Munich’s red light district. The actual encounter with the German prostitute was barely touched. “Hmm,” he said at last.

 

“’Hmm’ what?” snapped Walter.

 

“The first blonde prostitute that you saw, the one you rejected...”

 

The old man blinked, thought hard. “Oh,” he said eventually, “The she-male?”

 

“The same. Your disgust for her was strong, as was your disgust for her client. I can’t help but wonder...”

 

“Spit it out.”

 

“That you don’t have the same disgust for either me or yourself. I am old enough that form doesn’t matter, but I _am_ male, most of the time.”

 

“You’re an ungodly creature. What we do doesn’t matter because you’re dead but still consent, therefore I cannot sin against you or God,” and for the first time in his long life, Walter saw the vampire Alucard speechless.

 

“Sophistry!” he yelled when he finally found his voice again. “Sophistry, hypocrisy, you humans with the souls of lawyers! Splitting hairs, arguing about irrelevancies, lying through your hypocritical teeth!” Alucard snarled with disgust. He stalked though the wall, pausing only to throw a last, _“Lawyer!”_ over his shoulder.

 

Walter did the only thing he could do: he went to bed.

 

 

**

 

When he woke up the rain had cleared, and he found himself staring stupidly at the ceiling. He blinked slowly, trying to think and then the telephone on his bedside table rang again. The mattress creaked as he rolled over and fumbled with the receiver.

 

“’lo?”

 

 _“Mr Dornez? We need you to report in as soon as possible, sir.”_

 

“What are Sir Integra’s orders?”

 

 _“She’s...she’s still unconscious, sir. That’s why we need you.”_

 

Shutting his good eye turned the world into a blurry smear. He sighed. “I’ll be there,” and he hung up.

 

 _As soon as possible_ didn’t mean quite the same thing as _urgent,_ so when Walter got dressed and shuffled into the bathroom, he decided to have a quick shave. He hunted fruitlessly for a good two minutes, looking for the faithful cutthroat razor that he’d owned for so much of his life. Feeling a strange sense of panic he hunted for the thing until memory suddenly hit him and he gasped helplessly, clutching at the edge of the cabinet as he shook.

 

“Oh God,” he whispered, “Oh, my God. My God.”

 

In the end he bit his tongue and left to obey the summons. There wasn’t much else he could do.

 

The guards stationed at periodic intervals in the hallways had the same dazed expression, each and every one of them, as if they struggled to comprehend the mystery of their own existence. Walter felt the same way but as a commanding officer he didn’t have the luxury of introspection and he stalked past them, barking commands.

 

“You! Stand to attention and stop slouching! You’re a disgrace!”

 

“You! Straighten that jacket! You will wear the uniform as it’s meant to be worn!”

 

“You! Hold that gun properly and refasten your belt!”

 

One by one, they shook themselves, fixed their garments and their weapons and stood to attention. Relief slid across their features. Nothing upsets a solider like a break in routine or the nagging feeling that their commanding officers weren’t quite up to the job and Walter’s bit of bastardry reassured them in a way that no mere civilian could ever hope to understand.  When he finally arrived at the incident room Ferguson stood up and saluted. Walter bowed in reply.

 

“Sir Integra is still sedated,” said the Commander without preamble, “And we need to make this decision now.”

 

Walter followed Ferguson outside, into the grounds. The ground squelched underfoot and virtually steamed. It was unbelievable muggy and under his waistcoat, his shirt glued itself to his skin with sweat.

 

“The rose garden,” said Ferguson, pointing ahead. It truly did resemble an illustration from a book of fairytales; Sleeping Beauty, Briar Rose. But now, under the soggy sky, hacked and slashed and dug up by the investigative team, the huge tangle of thorns and canes no longer looked threatening, merely bedraggled. “Sir Integra collapsed before she could give orders about it. Without the blossoms I don’t think it’s a danger, but still, I don’t think it’s a good idea to just leave it.”

 

Staring at the English jungle, Walter’s face was immobile but in his shoes, his toes curled and clenched. Arrayed on trestles were various samples and artefacts, among them the petrol container that he’d carried from the car shed but had not been able to use. He said, “Has everything of interest been removed?”

 

“Yes.”

 

And Walter smiled.

 

“Burn it.”

 

There are very few things in the world that will not catch alight under a combination of flamethrowers and kerosene, no matter how soggy they may be. With his face stinging from the heat and his eyes tearing from the smoke, he watched, he _watched,_ as the roses turned to ash, knowing that he was burning something that Integra loved and taking great pleasure in it.

 

He said, “Something happened while we were in there together.”

 

Ferguson, who despised Walter almost as much as he respected him and dreaded the very notion of being confidant to a man whom he saw as being a psychotically insane sadist, responded with some severity. “Then Sir Integra herself will doubtless see to your debriefing.” He saluted and left, leaving Walter to grind his teeth and stare at the flames.

 

**

 

 

It was several days before he saw Integra again.

 

At first he thought that there was nothing to it. What had happened...well, he’d liked it at the time, hadn’t he? He’d received his deepest, most secret desire. He should be happy.

 

But when he tried to touch himself, her face in his mind was twisted, distorted. No longer the pure ideal it had been, it was twisted, deformed. She leered.

 

Very well then, he decided. He could think about someone other than Integra. The pretty lass in the car he had hijacked, the one whom had been so deliciously afraid. Maybe the page four girls in _The Sun_ newspaper. He even stole a pornographic magazine from one of the guard huts but it didn’t do him any good. All faces gradually morphed into hers, and always she was laughing at him. It wasn’t a pleasant expression.

 

At all times he felt a kind of...low grade pollution, as though he’d been sullied from the inside out. Sleep became impossible, and so did sitting still. He had to do things. Always.

 

Alucard visited him each night. Sometimes the vampire was sympathetic. Sometimes he’d laugh. Sometimes he looked like a little girl and on this night he walked through the walls wearing Integra’s face, the simulacrum that had once given Walter such pleasure, and now only made the butler violently angry. The simulacrum ended up all over the carpet and the walls before Walter remembered himself.

 

He sat down on bed while Alucard pulled himself together, intestines like snakes and blood that violated every physical property of liquids. Rubbing his face, the Angel of Death said, “Why did you do that to me?”

 

“I was bored.”

 

“It was cruel.”

 

“And this surprises you how?”

 

Walter couldn’t speak; he made a violent, helpless gesture with his hand. He didn’t look up when the slurping noises ceased, afraid of what he’d see.

 

“Angel of Death, you are no fun anymore. Really.” There was a sigh like a gust of wind, and Walter raised his head. There was a little girl standing in front of him, a pretty little girl with pale hair and the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. She smiled wistfully. “Maybe it’s time you went and saw her.”

 

He reached out, cupped the side of her face. The resemblance to twelve year old Integra was perfect if you ignored the icy skin. He said, “I do love you, you know.”

 

The little girl arched her eye brows. “Me or Integra?”

 

Walter just laughed. He went into the bathroom and brushed his hair and teeth and washed his face. The reflection in the shattered mirror was grey and worn. “How did I get so old?” he wondered, touching the web of wrinkles around his eye.

 

“It’s called time, Walter, and it happens to all of us.”

 

“Even you?”

 

“Even me.”

 

“Do you think she’d love me if I looked like I used to?”

 

“No,” said the vampire flatly. “You’d still be Walter. However,” and Walter whipped around to see a gaping maw filled with crocodilian teeth a foot away from his nose, “We could always try regardless.”

 

The old killer was still. To his shame, he actually considered it. “You know,” he said eventually, “I can’t imagine anything that would make her hate me more.”

 

The maw closed, and the stretched flesh tightened again. Alucard blinked his red eyes and tilted his hat on a jaunty angle. “It’s entirely possible,” he conceded.

 

“Don’t wait up,” Walter told him, and left.

 

The halls were still busy, despite it being late, and people scurried hither and thither with their hands full of manila folders and rolled maps. They greeted Walter with respectful voices and he answered them in kind. Image was everything. Walter was able to fool some people but not all of them; there were some that were afraid of him and it showed on their faces.

 

The light in Integra’s office was on, but when he opened the door the only greeting he got was from the maid who was bent over the already gleaming desk with tub of polish in hand. He apologised for disturbing her and left.

 

The only time Integra left early for the night was when she was ill or desperately tired. For a split second he contemplated leaving her to spend the night in peace, but he knew that if he didn’t confront her now he’d never do it. He could see the future: years spent hating her and loving her at the same time, until a miserable little death and a miserable little funeral. Integra would move on with her life and he’d be forgotten, a footnote in the book of her career.

 

To hell with that idea.

 

He was polite. Instead of just walking into her rooms through the door that joined them to her office, he decided to go the long way. He knocked on the door that opened into the corridor, and waited until she answered.

 

“May I come in?”

 

Silence. Then, “I suppose you’d better.”

 

She was in her sitting room, wrapped in a long, soft blue dressing gown, curled up on her lounge chair. The title of the book in her hands was _Carmilla_ _,_ a collector’s edition with _pictures_ and _illustrations,_ and Walter remembered Seras walking out of this very room with unfastened clothing, and while the habitual pleasant smile on his face didn’t falter, inside he was snarling.

 

“May I help you?” she inquired. She sounded weary, she looked weary, she _was_ weary, red streaks on her skin around the bandage on her neck where she’d scratched the itching flesh. In a small, petty sort of way Walter was pleased at her discomfort.

 

“I came to see how you were recovering, my lady,” he said smoothly.

 

A single eyebrow twitched. “I am as well as might be expected, Walter.”

 

They stared at each other. Walter held his hands behind his back, flexed his fingers so that he could feel his rings under his gloves. Integra doubtless had at least one gun stashed under the cushions. And Alucard would be watching, like the voyeur that he was.

 

He cleared his throat. “Are your wounds healing?”

 

“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes. “Thank you for your concern.”

 

“You’re welcome,” he murmured.

 

They stared some more, and it was a measure of just how ill and tired she was that Integra gave up first. “I’m going to bed,” she announced, and stood up. She shut the book and left it on the armrest, the blue gown swirling about her ankles. Her feet were bare and large for a woman, but well made, and Walter fastened his eyes on them.

 

“You should be wearing slippers. You’ll catch cold.”

 

She stopped. “It is none of your business, Walter,” she snapped.

 

And Walter said, “I beg to differ, my lady. Absolutely everything about you is my business,” and was satisfied at the long, slow growl that welled up from her torn throat. Whipping around, she strode towards him like an avenging goddess.

 

“You listen to me,” she snarled, jabbing her finger into his chest, “You are my _retainer._ Nothing more. You obey when I order you, and that’s all there is to it. Do you understand?” His hand snapped up, wrapped around hers tightly. “Walter, you are hurting me _._ Let go.”

 

“No.”

 

“I said let go!”

 

“No.”

 

“How dare you!” she drew back her spare hand, obviously intending to slap him, but then she gasped. Her face turned pale and a painful wheeze came from her chest. Coughing, she sank to her knees, glaring up at him with nothing but hatred on her face. The sight of her on the ground before him gave him a deep sense of satisfaction. He smiled.

 

“Are you all right, my lady?”

 

“Bastard, _let go!”_

She was _afraid_ of him. And suddenly, he was ashamed and angry because he was ashamed. He dropped to his knees in front of her. He tightened his grip on her hand until he felt the bones grind together. Gritting her teeth, she bore the pain.

 

He said, “Why?”

 

He said, “Why did you do to me what you did?”

 

He said, “I love you. I always have.”

 

He said, “Why. Please tell me why. It’s all I want to know.”

 

There was rage in Integra’s eyes, but no guilt.

 

“Isn’t that you wanted?” she spat, “You fucking deviant! I trusted you! All my life I trusted you! Depended on you! Confided in you, looked up to you! And then I realise that you’re...you’re...”

 

“In love with you?” he asked softly.

 

“If that’s what you want to call it. I can’t believe,” she spat, “That I let you _wash_ me when I was sick. How could you do that to me? How could you?” When he didn’t answer, she shocked him by slapping him hard across the face. He was too astonished to be angry. “How long has this been going on?”

 

“I honestly can’t recall,” and she slapped him again.

 

“Deviant! Pervert!”

 

Walter caught her hand as she drew back to slap him again. He pressed them both to his chest. “I am not,” he said coldly, “And never have been interested in children, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

 

“You liar.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Liar, I remember. I remember-”

 

“My lady, whatever you remember, it wasn’t me.”

 

“Liar!” she gasped. “Lair,” she coughed and her head dropped. “Hands in the dark. Touching me. I was scared. I remember.”

 

“It wasn’t me. I swear it. I swear.” He buried his face in her hair. “I loved you then but it was different to the way I love you now. I swear. Have Alucard read my mind if you don’t believe me.”

 

“He’s a liar too,” her voice was small and cold.

 

“But he can’t disobey a direct order, and you know it.” Raising her head, she looked at him hard in the eyes. And because she didn’t trust him and wouldn’t take his word, he felt the familiar sensation of _other_ in his mind, of something picking up thoughts and rearranging memories like objects and furniture. Finally, her eyes glazed over and Walter knew that Alucard was speaking to her.

 

“Very well,” she said coldly, “I believe you.” They stared at each other, the two murderers on their knees. He leaned forward to kiss her and she jerked away. “No!”

 

“Why not?” he said desperately, “Why not? Because I couldn’t protect you from Carmilla? Because I couldn’t protect you from Richard? From Alucard? From whoever it was who visited you in the dark? Because...” his voice dropped in defeat, “Because I’m old?”

 

Integra sighed. “Walter, listen to me. The day will come, in the not too distant future, when the Knights of the Round Table will summon me to their conference. We will file into the room one by one and we will pay our respects to Her Majesty as we take our places at the table. And then they’ll remind me, once more, that Alucard is bound to the blood of the Hellsing line and that frozen eggs and donor sperm and surrogate mothers are not really appropriate to my position or status, and I will smile, I will obey Her Majesty’s command. I will go out and find myself a nice, pliable little Protestant husband who will give me healthy children and listen to every word I say and who’ll never, ever ask questions about just what I for a living. I’ll love him in a way that makes my heart ache, and protect him from everything he doesn’t know and I’ll never, ever feel the urge to confide in him. I will take my children and train them to be killers.

 

“Walter, I do not love you the way you want me too. I never will. And even if I did, I would still not take you because I will never accept any man who is anything approaching my equal.”

 

So that was it. He released her hands. She scooted backwards so she could lean against the lounge and she rubbed her throat. Walter stared at her because she was beautiful, and because he loved her. “And where does Seras Victoria fit into all of this?” he said softly.

 

“What is between Seras and I is none of your business,” and the tiredness in her eyes intensified as she held back the coughing. “I mean it.”

 

Closing his eyes, he sighed. When he opened them again he realised that she was very close to sleep.

 

“I’m sorry,” she slurred softly. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

 

“I’m sorry too,” and he took a cushion from the lounge and put it on the floor. He pressed her down and for once, she allowed it. He tucked the cushion under her head and she smiled at him before she fell asleep.

 

That long nose seemed to soften now that she wasn’t staring down it and her hair tangled underneath her when she rolled over, muttering something inaudible.

 

Walter was tired too, from all the sleepless nights, and he lay down beside her. He reached out, pressed his palm against her back. He loved her, so he forgave her.  There was no choice in the matter. They were both monsters, and they’d betrayed each other in kind.

 

Eventually, Walter would get up. He would pull his Integra into his arms and carry her to her bed. He would draw the covers up and he’d ache hopelessly to join her. Then he would go back to his own rooms and shower and he’d get into his own bed and maybe he’d dream of her and maybe he wouldn’t. It would never, ever cross his mind to leave her, or Hellsing, no matter how much it ached that she didn’t love him back.

 

His fingers flexed, the fabric bundling in his fingers.

 

Walter loved Integra, and he wanted to be with her no matter what. He smiled, closed his eyes and went to sleep beside her.

 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, even I, the writer, happen to think that Walter is spectacularly fucked up.


End file.
